All About You FRIDAY – Don’t Look Back in Anger

Oasis: Noel and Liam Gallagher performing in San Diego, 2005. Photo: Will Fresch / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0.

There’s something about music that instantly brings you back to the times you connected with a song. For me, I remember things like singing the Hallelujah Chorus with my dad while sitting in the backseat of our family station wagon heading home from his choir practice. Or the time I heard a lone violinist from Russia playing an Andrea Boccelli’s “Con Te Partirò” as I wandered a quiet street in Florence. Or the Ed Sheeran song I sang at my wedding.

Most people spend their teen years immersed with the popular music of the day. This is where I differed. When my contemporaries were sitting in their bedrooms blasting rock and pop tunes on their turntables or Sony Walkmans, screaming or crooning lyrics at the tops of their lungs, I probably had my nose in a biology book. I was a bit of an anomaly.

It’s kind of funny that I now play in two different rock bands. Maybe I’m making up for lost time on my teenage years. Maybe I’m just intrigued by the nostalgia most feel when they listen to music from their past. Just look at how Eric Clapton can still play to a sellout crowd at the age of 81.

In my band, Drawing Straws, each member gets to pick a song for the setlist we are preparing. I often ask people around me what I should choose. A couple of years ago, I chose Wonderwall, a song by the band Oasis.

I picked it because that is the band Liz connected with as a teenager back in England. Our relationship was new and I was trying to be impressive. I also picked it because I was told I had to sing it and it was in my vocal range. I mean, how romantic is that?

Last weekend, she bought us tickets to see the documentary on Oasis shown at or local IMAX theater. Armed with my mini-tacos and bottle of water and sitting in these amazing recliners that could warm you up, I became fully immersed in the story.

Liam and Noel Gallagher grew up in a working-class family with significant financial hardship in Manchester, particularly in the Burnage area.

Their parents, Peggy and Thomas Gallagher, were Irish immigrants. Thomas worked in construction, and Peggy worked various jobs, including in a school cafeteria. Money was tight, and the three Gallagher boys—Paul, Noel and Liam—shared fairly cramped circumstances growing up.

There was also a much darker side to their childhood. Noel and older brother Paul have described their father as physically abusive, particularly toward them. Peggy eventually left Thomas in the early 1980s and took the boys with her. After that, she raised them largely on her own while working.

Oasis formed in in 1991. Liam was initially the singer in a band called The Rain. His older brother Noel joined shortly afterward and quickly became the band’s principal songwriter and lead guitarist.

That combination became the heart of Oasis, with Liam singing lead vocals and bringing the swagger. He was the natural frontman, with his distinctive nasal/raspy voice and odd character. Noel became the songwriter and lead guitar player, occasionally singing lead.

Their relationship was also combustible. They fought, insulted each other publicly, walked out on performances and occasionally refused to work together.

But musically, the combination was remarkably successful.

They hit it big between 1994-96, playing to crowds of up to 250,000 people at the height of the BritPop era. Liz would have been 16 years old and I can picture her singing their songs at the top of her lungs and dancing around her bedroom. Unlike me, she has some dance moves.

Oasis ultimately had seven consecutive UK #1 studio albums and sold more than 70 million albums.

Not too bad for a couple of brothers from Manchester.

Then on August 28, 2009, they scheduled to perform at the Rock en Seine festival outside Paris. The crowd was waiting in anticipation. The stage was empty. Then the announcement over the loud speaker. “There will be no concert tonight. Liam and Noel had a huge fight backstage and Oasis is no longer.” The show was cancelled. The crowd was stunned.

I can’t even imagine how much that must have cost them. But they walked away from each other. After 18 years together, the music was over.

In 2024, rumors started going around that they were reuniting. And in 2025, they launched a worldwide tour that became the subject of the documentary. Sixteen years had gone by. They hadn’t spoken to each other much. They had gone on to do solo work. What compelled them to reunite, I’m not sure.

They rented out a large warehouse to begin rehearsals. Nobody knew what the chemistry of the band would be like. Tension filled the air. There was no sweet reunion vibe. Liam walked into the first practice late, walked up to the microphone and sang a few songs and then walked out without saying a word. After weeks of rehearsal, they hit the road.

The first time they stepped out on stage, Liam grabbed Noel’s hand and hoisted it up in the air as the crowd went wild. That gesture would become a regular thing at the beginning of each concert.

As I watched the movie, I was moved by several things.

16 years after their break up, the stadiums and parks were packed not only with people who were now in their 40’s but also a much younger generation.
Liam is weird. I now realize I should have sung Wonderwall in a nasally tone with my mouth plastered up against the microphone. And in the end, I should have placed a tambourine on the top of my head and held my arms out triumphantly. That would have been very impressive to Liz.
Their songs are very singable. There is no screeching guitar solo or instrumentation. The chords simple. The words are meaningful. The singing takes center stage and the songs are meant to be sung together at the top of your lungs.
As they traveled from the UK, to Mexico, to the US and all around the world, night after night, they bore witness to the effect their music had on several generations and that became the thing that healed the wounds of decades.

Noel said, “I never thought I would ever say this about him, but he is loveable…the songs are one thing. But I’ve forgotten what HE means to people.”

His brother wasn’t any less quirky. Nobody’s personality had really changed. City after city, night after night, what grew was an understanding who each brother was. The witness of their music healing others is what ultimately healed them.

“People will never forget the way you make them feel,” Noel said in revelation.

Coincidentally, one of their biggest hits from the 1990s is “Don’t Look Back in Anger”, a song about not allowing regret, resentment or the past to control what comes next. In 2017, the song became closely associated with Manchester’s response to the Manchester Arena bombing.

Grief. Solidarity. And defiance without vengeance.

I think there is a lesson in all of that for us. I know what song I’m picking next for our band.

It’s been a long week. Don’t forget to celebrate.

Until next time…